


EDDIE K.’S SEXY SUMMER ROAD TRIP FT. RICHIE T.

by summerpassingby



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie lives AU, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, M/M, Road Trips, and there was only one bed (in the rv), if you see me projecting in here no you DONT but you definitely do, it's not relevant to the story but just Know, minor mentions of period/book-typical homophobia?, youre in an RV with a beautiful boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:28:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerpassingby/pseuds/summerpassingby
Summary: ooga ooga richie eddie road trip to the mountains and swim in lake
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this starting in april 2020 so touch starved quarantine bitches who can't go anywhere this one goes out to you/me. playlist here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1xRBl49XieC3MX0EzTbouV?si=eLZwDuElSHCIn76g875OOA
> 
> my first ever fic so i am more publishing out of principle lol

“Whaddaya think, Eds?”

Eddie turns. Richie has his hands on his hips, staring up at the rusting RV sitting in his backyard with a look of such genuine pride that Eddie almost pinches himself to make sure he hasn’t died and gone to his own personal hell.

It’s high praise to call what’s in front of them a _vehicle_ , and _recreational_ doesn’t even factor into the equation. More like _death trap on wheels_ —which is high praise too, considering two of them are flat and two are missing altogether. Eddie’s ten feet away from it and already planning a tetanus shot.

He debates never coming over to Richie’s again—at least his third time today, look where that keeps getting him—adding _Biohazard comma Richie’s backyard_ to his running list of reasons. Files in neatly, right above _Biohazard comma Richie’s bedroom_.

He’s considering _Richie comma dumbass_ , which really should’ve made it on there already, when he realizes he’s still staring at Richie.

Richie’s eyes are all crinkly at the corners, like they get at the photobooth in the arcade when he turns just in time—a second before the flash—and sticks his tongue out right next to Eddie’s ear, so the reel comes out with Eddie realizing what’s happening too late to do anything but recoil in the first three and stick his own tongue back out at Richie in the last one.

It’s different from his usual crinkle and too specific to ever bring up to anyone else, but Richie does it _every time_ they’re in there so who can blame Eddie for noticing, really, especially when they’re still just looking at each other. Eddie probably has the same face as in the photobooth too—horror edging on laughter, trying his best not to let Richie know that, fine, hanging out with him is kind of fun.

He doesn’t know why he can’t tell Richie how much fun he has. Somebody would probably look at him funny, the same way they would if he said _Look! Richie’s got the same crinkle as at the arcade, isn’t it so nice?_

They’re still just looking at each other. Eddie doesn’t know what it means but is suddenly worrying about a tetanus shot again and also that it does mean something, them looking at each other, when Richie’s eyes start to widen and then relax back down. That always means _zinger coming_ , so Eddie bites the bullet before Richie can get there. “You want us to _fix that?_ It probably has black mold, asshole.”

“I want us to restore her to her former glory, Spaghetti, Sonia’s in her prime—”

Eddie should’ve known it’d be this, always this or _Eddie baby cutie patootie look atcha_ , which he bets is coming next, and ignores the tiny, tiny part of him that’s let down when it doesn’t.

“—get it, Eds, because she, like Mrs. K., is just _waiting_ for me to get inside her—”

“—Gross, Richie, fucking gross—”

Richie stops short. “Gross enough to say no to the hundred bucks Went says he’ll give us if we can?”

Richie’s fucking grinning at him like he knows what Eddie’s about to say, which he does.

Because he has wronged God in some unknowable, horrific way, and also because he likes it more than he admits, Eddie spends all of his time with Richie. And because Eddie spends all of his time with Richie, who has never once missed an opportunity to spend money, Eddie is broke as hell.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [watches the community rv hand episode once] but like, literally...


	2. Chapter 2

“I think we should call this the Diseasemobile,” Eddie says, eyeing the rust he’s supposed to be cleaning off the outside paneling.

“Thought that was what you called my bike.” Richie is biting his lip, smiling at him.

Eddie flicks his cloth at Richie, who’s working father down on the same panel. “Nope. Your bike’s just gross, this is like a CDC directory.”

“Ah, and you love it all the same, Eds.” Richie’s smile is even wider.

Eddie considers arguing it but knows Richie will call his bluff right away. He rolls his eyes instead. Fine. He loves it a little bit. Except for parts like this where he doesn’t understand how anyone could ever get something this dirty, fixing up the RV is kind of nice. He likes the repetition of it—looking at the taillight he patches up or the wheel he replaces and telling himself _you made it this way,_ then doing it again for the next one, only better.

Eddie barters his new X-Men comic in exchange for a ban on Richie coming within six feet of the engine when he starts working on it, and visits Ben on shift at the library to take out _Automotive Engine Repair and Rebuilding_ , telling himself the whole time _you’ll make it this way_. Eddie loves that, no question—having something exist because of him.

Even though Mike has to bring his grandfather over one day because Eddie can’t figure out the fuel line and they both know more about engines than Eddie ever will in his life, he still loves it. Something that’s his.

Sometimes that reminds him of Richie.

“Couldn’t keep him away, huh?” Mike nods to Richie on his way out, flopped in the grass with his usual hand behind his head, reading X-MEN: BLOODTIES exactly six feet away from Eddie at the engine—he measured, red tape, starting to peel up at the ends now.

Eddie turns red. “Guess not,” he says.

Mike smiles like he always does, in the way that makes you want to give him every single thing he’s ever wanted in life, even though that’s probably just _peace_ and you’re not sure if he means that in the _world_ or the _Florida beach house at sunset_ way, but you’d still give him either.

Eddie smiles back, trying not to wonder how close Richie would get if Eddie let him, and doing a bad fucking job of it.

Closer than usual—which puts a twinge in his stomach, because the longest they’re apart right now is the three hours it takes Eddie to get bored of being at Richie’s, go home, get way more bored at home, and bike back over to Richie’s.

Eddie isn’t even looking at the engine anymore, too busy getting his brain to stop imagining _closer than usual_ and then thinking even harder about it, the feeling of Richie’s leg pressed up against his in the hammock multiplied by a thousand.

He groans, collapsing back onto the grass before glaring up at upside-down Richie, telepathic _you make me think too much_.

Richie drops his comic and looks back at Eddie, eyes wide behind his glasses. They’re still sitting a little crooked—dangerous combination of _Richie is blind without glasses_ and _Richie makes everyone get in a water balloon fight, except he only has regular balloons which don’t really break when you throw them and mainly just hurt a lot_ and _Bill has very bad, or very good aim around Richie’s face_ —and Eddie thinks for a split second that he should get up and adjust them, hands reaching for Richie’s face and then the little hex key he bought from the pharmacy on a whim thinking of them.

“Hola, Eduardo. Time-out? Sonia and I don’t usually take breaks, but we can make an exception.” Richie reaches a hand out for Eddie, and he grabs it. _This close?_ he asks himself, and doesn’t answer.

Afterwards, sweating their way up the hill back to Richie’s on their bikes, Eddie cursing the air conditioning at the Aladdin for making him forget how unforgivably hot today is, Richie twists around and shouts to Eddie. “Like the movie, Eds?”

“Sure did, Rich,” Eddie shouts back.

It’s a joke. Eddie doesn’t even think he watched it—Jurassic Park, their third time seeing it because they can’t agree on anything else, both of them too busy whispering at each other to pay attention anyways.

But he still liked it, two hours of him and Richie feeling like they’re the only ones in the world. Leaned over against each other, _this close?_

It’s the same twinge and not-quite-an answer when Eddie asks himself again in Richie’s bedroom, trying to avoid the heat wave that’s been ballooning since the day at the Aladdin. Richie’s hunched over on his floor, still lanky even though he’s all folded up, planning a mixtape.

“D’ya think it should be _Friday I’m in Love_ or _The Power of Love_ next?” Richie asks.

Eddie snorts and rolls his head to look at him from the bed, spread-eagled and still too hot to move more than that. “What is this, prom?”

Richie grins. “Well, if you wanted to slow-dance with me you could’ve just asked, Eddie my love.”

Eddie burns. He hates how red he goes when Richie calls him that. “Ha ha, asshole.”

Richie shrugs, still making eye contact. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to do but look at Richie, _this close this close this close?_

Richie’s eyes are wide until he finally blinks. “Plus, all my practice with Mrs. K. would finally come in handy.”

Eddie rolls his eyes so far back in his head he thinks they might stick there.

When the heat wave finally passes, they set back up in the backyard, Eddie to finish the engine, and Richie, with a half-broken lawn chair he finds outside a house on Witcham, to finish Eddie’s—Eddie’s! —comics.

Eddie looks up from the engine at him. Richie’s already looking back at him, smile so soft it could be Mike’s.

“What,” Eddie says. He feels dumb for it.

Richie smiles wider, and Eddie realizes his nose is burning _and_ freckling at the same time. “Nothing,” Richie says at the same time Eddie says, “Numbnuts. Put some sunscreen on.”

He feels a jolt saying it, like he’s on a train switching tracks and if he had just asked why? he could’ve stayed the course. He unzips his fanny pack anyways, reaching for the Coppertone he keeps in the big inner pocket.

He tosses it to Richie, then turns back to the engine. “Heat stroke can get really bad, Richie. Hospital-bad, and you’re too busy throwing your guts up to think.”

“Fine, Eds, but only for you. I hate to think of it—somebody as cute as you, moping around with me gone? I think Stan might throw a party, Bevvie would be fine,” Richie ticks them off on his hands, “she’s got Haystack _and_ Big Bill all over her now, no worries there—Mike too, he’s got the whole _school_ all over him now that he goes but you, Spaghetti. You might never recover.”

Eddie thinks of the coffin in Neibolt. In his mind it’s made of driftwood, shape faint from Bill whispering it to him, _b-but d-don’t b-bring it up with Richie_ , and smooth from running over it again and again, waves of his own fears crashing into it. “No, dick, we’d all miss you.”

Eddie would miss him so much it would hurt.

He thinks about Mike again, smiling at the both of them.

At the same time he realizes that without thinking, his hands have put the oil filter back in place—which, if anything, is a terrible indicator that he could’ve made progress a whole lot faster if he had stopped thinking about trying to make it, because the engine is back up and running.

“What about my dick?” Richie retorts, but he realizes it too, and is already scrambling over to Eddie. “Holy shit! No more six feet?”

Eddie smiles. Yeah. He looks up at Richie, mock-stern, which is really just his regular-stern face because Richie never takes it seriously. “Don’t think I won’t reinstate it, asshole.”

“Yeah, right,” Richie laughs, and squeezes his arm around Eddie. Eddie wonders if six feet might be a good rule to keep up after all.

The engine ends the work they need to do on the outside, and also Eddie’s list of excuses not to start work on the inside, so the next day Eddie actually sets foot inside the RV for the first time. He almost throws up. More because of what he’s expecting it to be than what it actually is, but he tastes bile all the same.

Richie looks over at him when he does. Eddie presses on. “It’s not too bad.”

Richie snorts. “Need my glasses, Eds? I don’t think you’re seeing this shit right.”

“No, it’s.” Eddie ignores the rising feeling in his stomach. “Nice. Very seventies,” which is as much of a compliment as he can give it.

“Whatever you say. You should still try my glasses on, though, I think you’d look cute in them.” Richie elbows him.

Eddie tries his best not to think about Richie sliding his glasses behind Eddie’s ears, both of them looking at each other blurry.

The RV is offensively seventies. Eddie knows Richie’ll love it, once they wipe off the quarter-inch-thick layer of dust blanketing everything. It’s all orange-brown and almost all one big room; bed wall-to-wall in the very back with a couple of shelves and a bedside table, sliding door out into a hallway (bathroom to one side, storage on the other) turning into a living room (kitchenette on the same side as the bathroom, space for a couch and more storage on the other) and ending in the driver’s seat, with room for another beside it.

Richie opens one of the kitchenette drawers and makes a face. Eddie pretends it’s because of how aggressively clean it is. “Went says he’ll take care of the mattress and seats,” —Eddie thanks God genuinely for the first time in his life— “so we really only have to look after the fun stuff. And a couch.”

“Goodwill?” Eddie asks. More something to say than an actual decision to make; half because Richie’s on a thrifting kick (“It’s _retro,_ Spaghetti, that’s what makes it cool,” Richie tells him—Eddie prefers _falling apart_ , but likes hanging out with Richie more than he cares) and half because they don’t have enough money, even combined, to shop anywhere else. Or there, even, if they hadn’t managed to guilt Bev into letting them use her forty percent employee discount.

“The land of hidden treasures, Spaghetti.”

“Let me know the day you find one, Rich.”

Eddie pleads fixed-the-engine and, after triple-checking that the couch is Went’s replacement and he’s not putting his ass near twenty-year-old dirt, he sits down—half-reading Richie’s comics (retribution) and half-watching him work.

He’s running his tongue along his bottom teeth—means _excited_ , like when everyone has enough time off to swimming at the quarry together, but he’s concentrated like he’s trying to make Stan laugh. Eddie hopes it’s Richie’s version of _you’ll make it this way_. He wants Richie to have something that’s his. Maybe the inside of a shitty RV, but other things too. Eddie wants to give them to him, and to know what they are.

Sometimes Eddie wonders what he’d do if you asked him the same thing as Mike, _what do you want_ —if he’d just say _Richie_ and let you decide whether he meant _happiness for_ or _beside me_ or something he hasn’t figured out yet.

Maybe he wants it to stay like this, that’s what.

 _So what if I did,_ he tells himself.

He tries it out. “What if we just stayed in here forever?”

It comes out more awkward than he’s expecting.

“In _here?_ ” Richie raises his eyebrows.

Eddie lets his shoulders fall. “Okay, not _here_ , but like, the clubhouse.” In a way the RV reminds him of it when they were first clearing it out, only there’s no architect-Ben to make it actually, unironically (for a clubhouse) cool.

The air feels sticky.

Richie nods quickly. “Be nice, huh? All of us.”

Eddie feels worse, because of course it should be all of them. “Stan would get bored.”

Richie nods again. Eddie can see him shift his brow, steadying himself for his Stan Voice. “Richie, we haven’t seen the _sun_ in three days. The _sun_. You do not want to fuck with me if I don’t see the sky by tomorrow.”

Eddie relents. “Wouldn’t work, then.”

Richie shrugs. “Okay,” is all he says. Eddie doesn’t know if he means _you’re right, you’re wrong_ , or anything at all.

He gets home early that day.

The next they meet at Goodwill, waiting for Bev to come in for her shift. Eddie grimaces. Richie has a cowboy hat on for his Butch Cassidy Voice. It’s going to give him lice. Then Eddie will have to stay away from him and Eddie probably _won’t_ and then he’ll get lice too, and then where the fuck does it end?! Because once you get lice it’s—

“Hey, Spaghetti, think I’m going to get lice from this?” Richie slips out of his voice, grinning.

Eddie can’t remember where he was going with the lice thing, and he smiles at the way Richie does—all toothy. _Fucking Rich, jeez!_ he hears himself think the same way he’d say it to Mike, all blushing, when Richie does his Freddie Mercury impression for Eddie. “I think even the lice know better than to come near your head.”

Richie’s eyebrows go up, then down. “I dunno, Eds, Mrs. K. doesn’t have any problems with it. And I’m not just talking about the one on my shoul—”

Eddie weighs his options, delicate moves when you’re playing a game of _This close?_ , and makes a grab for the hat.

Richie’s faster though, and holds it above his head, protesting. Eddie curses himself. Why did _Richie_ have to be the one to get so fucking _tall?_ He grabs Richie’s glasses and wipes them. “Fine. If you’re wearing the cowboy hat, at least one thing on your head will be cleaner.” He considers it. “Ish.”

He stands on his tiptoes to fit them back on Richie. Richie freezes, mouth stuck open mid- _betrayed, Eds, what did I ever do to you? Okay— fine— maybe—_ and one hand above his head, still holding up that stupid cowboy hat. He’s squinting, nose scrunched up like he’s laughing at a joke. Eddie likes it. All of his freckles are squished together. His fingers brush Richie’s hair as he sets the glasses down. It’s soft. Eddie likes it as much as his freckles.

Richie starts moving again, like he’s been reactivated. He pushes his glasses up with his palm and stares at Eddie. “I missed seeing that face, Eds. Cutest one out there.” Before Eddie can react, Richie switches back to his Voice. “Ah’d be lawst withowt ma’ pardner.”

Eddie avoids eye contact. Butch Cassidy doesn’t even talk like that and it’s too much when Richie looks at him the way he is right now—like Richie knows something he doesn’t. _What! What? What?_ He hates not knowing. It settles like a pit in his stomach. It disappears when Bev comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am SO SORRY i have never set foot in an rv in my life


	3. Chapter 3

Despite their best efforts, they actually manage to finish fixing the inside of the RV—or rather, Richie does. Eddie doesn’t think he’s done anything that qualifies as _work_ in at least a week, except for moving a too-yellow Goodwill couch into the living-room-slash-kitchen.

Doesn’t really matter, though. Richie is the best at finding things that fit. The RV feels more open, even though it’s too narrow to stretch their legs out fully—even for Eddie—so they’re both cross-legged, opposite each other in the little hallway to the bedroom. It’s even more like the clubhouse now, and by that Eddie means: theirs, nobody else getting to know what’s inside it, or even looking long enough to wonder.

The more Eddie thinks about it, the more he kind of does want to stay in here forever. It would be easy for him, he thinks. There’s a kitchen. He could learn to cook and they’d read comics like this. Trade them back and forth across the hallway, knees pressing against each other like they are now. Knees burning, like now—Eddie feels a line of heat like a seal holding them together, real enough that he keeps worrying that Richie feels it too. One of Richie’s knees is still busted from tripping at the Barrens. Eddie shifts away from it. He doesn’t want to hurt it.

Richie’s lips are pressed together like he’s trying to hide his smile. Eddie thinks it’s a good idea. If Richie smiled Eddie would smile and they’d both just sit there smiling at each other, and then Richie would move and it would be gone and Eddie would be stuck with a smile he can’t get back in, one saying _Richie!_ and then probably _Cute cute cute!_ in his voice.

“Went said we could drive this to my uncle in Colorado Springs. He wants to use it.”

Eddie can’t tell what’s more surprising to him, that somebody wants the RV or that Went trusts Richie, of _I-crashed-my-car-during-my-permit-test_ fame, to drive it that far. Trusts both of them.

“It’ll take us five days, maybe six depending on how much we stop. I know there’s not that much to see until we hit Colorado, but I was thinking it could be nice, you know, you and me, Eds. Went says he’ll pay for us to fly back. We could do it.”

Eddie realizes with a drop that his knee has shifted back against Richie’s, and he moves it away again. He can’t stop thinking _we_ could _do it_ , because they could.

Technically.

Eddie bites his lip. “I would, Richie, for real. My mom, though, she’d…”

He doesn’t finish.

Richie nods. “I get it.”

The worst part, for Eddie, is that he probably does. He’s had years of putting up with Eddie’s dumb fucking hang-ups, right? Eddie wants it to be different for Richie more than for himself. He pushes his knee back against Richie’s. “I want— I want to go. I’ll just tell her I’m going.”

More clarity than he’s expecting comes with him saying that. Maybe he could. He doesn’t take pills anymore, only uses his inhaler sometimes. That worked. When he found out his medications were placebos, yelled at his mom and stormed out, she didn’t do anything about it. Cried, maybe, put his food at the dinner table without looking at him, drove in silence to the doctor in Bangor and told him _this is what you get_ when he had to keep his cast on for another two weeks, and it all fucking sucked and he tried to go over to Richie’s more than usual, but she never actually stopped him from going over there. Only ever guilted him for it, he realizes.

So maybe it’s dumb of him to hope for it, but he still does. He hopes so hard it hurts. It’s like fighting monsters, right? What you do will work, if you believe it does.

Richie taps his hand, fast, against the tiled floor. “Just be safe, ‘kay, Eds? It’s not every day Mrs. K. has to let me out of her sights for a whole week, and no offence, but I’m kind of irreplaceable.”

Eddie flicks Richie’s non-busted knee. “’Kay.”

Eddie calls him after.

Richie picks up right away. Eddie can always tell it’s him—it’s the way he pauses before answering, like he’s preparing. “Eddie? You okay?”

“Okay as you can be after your mom tells you you’re not strong enough to do anything for two hours.”

He hears Richie suck in air.

Eddie knows how it sounds, but in the grand scheme of things her response is pretty mild, especially for what he’s asking. Your standard _you’ll get so dirty, what about your pills? when you get an asthma attack and you lose your inhaler and your allergies you know you’re so sensitive to these things all those bad people out there just waiting to take advantage_.

His standard _I’ll be clean, you know I will I always am, I’ll call you_ (he doesn’t plan on it) _and I’ll be so careful_ , sudden Neibolt waves filled with subway poles and voices calling _girly boy_ and _c’mere, Eddie_ washing up as he says it. “She said I could go. Well—” _said I could_ sounds too much like giving permission. More like she cried, cried some more, and then told him to call as much as he could when he threatened to walk out— “she didn’t say no, so.”

Richie, for what it’s worth, actually goes quiet for a second. “Mrs. K. agreeing? Mark it on the calendar. Shit, Eds. Takes balls.”

It was pretty cool of him to say it— _I’m going and you know what? Richie’s dad trusts me to so you should too_. Even cooler, because a part of him believes it.

“It’ll be good to get away for a bit,” Richie says.

Eddie agrees. Fewer fucked-up clowns in Colorado—fucking knock on wood, though, knowing his luck. “Easier not to think about things.”

 _Richie_ is the only _thing_ not included in _things_ , but he doesn’t let himself consider it.

“And,” Eddie hears the twist in Richie’s voice, “we’re going through _twelve_ different states. There has to be a girl who’ll hook up with me in at _least_ three of them.”

Eddie feels himself blush. “You could just talk to Sally Mueller.” She’s in their Civics class, and is always asking to partner up with Richie. Eddie knows because he’s always trying to get to Richie before her. What? You expect him to partner up with Cissy fucking Clark instead?

“Ah, Eds, you know she’s too cute for me.”

“You’re,” Eddie starts. _Cute cute cute!_ Ugh. “She’s not _that_ cute.”

Richie laughs. “Fine, I’ll listen to the experts.”

Eddie, somehow, blushes even more. “Whatever, numbnuts. When do we leave?”

On the fifteenth. Two more days. He tells his mother as much, not staying in the room long enough to hear her response. It still doesn’t feel real. He wonders if she’ll really let him.

Richie asks the same thing, opening the door to the RV for Eddie the day they leave.

“Guess so,” Eddie says, pulling his suitcase up into the cabin. “Can’t stop me now, right?”

Saying that makes him nauseous, because what if she really did have a good reason to stop him? It’s not like he’s ever fucking travelled anywhere, and she may not do it now but his mother _must_ have been _some_ places, she can’t have always been like that, _some_ reason for his dad to marry her, so what if she does know better? He thinks he could deal with something if it did happen, enough first-aid knowledge to teach a course and enough car knowledge to get by, but having to come home and explain _no, Richie didn’t want me there_ , or _his uncle didn’t like me after all_ , or whatever it is, makes the corners of his vision turn white. Then he’d have to admit that she was right all along, that he’s not safe, and if he’s not sa—

“Eds?”

Then Eddie feels stupid, because he hasn’t moved from the doorway, and his mother has literally stopped him after all. He presses his lips together. It doesn’t feel like he has any muscles left. “What,” he says, more clipped than he means to.

“Nothing.” Richie’s mouth scrunches to one corner. It’s always the left one; Eddie wonders if he can do it with his right too. “You okay?”

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. “Can you get my inhaler? First aid kit underneath the passenger seat.” He says it all in one go, trying to ignore the fact that he’s saying it at all. He should’ve just put one in his back pocket to start with. Too ambitious of him.

“Yeah, Eddie.” Richie hands it to him.

Eddie feels like shit. He doesn’t even use it, just holds it in his hand and traces the raised lettering below the trigger. His shoulders loosen, and he wishes they’d tighten back up just so he wouldn’t have to admit that the inhaler, in its own fucked-up way, is working.

“S’okay that you need your inhaler,” Richie says. Eddie doesn’t believe him, even though he knows Richie is right—about this and most other things, when he wants to be. The way Richie says it doesn’t make Eddie feel like he _needs_ to believe him, though. That makes Eddie breathe a little more.

“I still want to go,” he says. He needs to say it.

Richie nods. “Fucking _babes_ are waiting for us as soon as we get out of Derry, I’m telling you.”

Eddie laughs easily, but he also feels like something’s getting farther away. Like he’ll spend the whole trip driving towards it, and never make it there. He exhales. “Can you grab me a book? You left them on top of the dresser.” Eddie can’t say he knows for sure _why_ Richie did, but a very large part of him suspects it is for this exact moment.

“Wants me to get stuff from up high for him. Cute, cute, cute!”

The very small part of Eddie that suspects he could have accidentally left them there disappears. “I’m fucking average height! Five eight, look it up, dickwad.” It might be five nine. Whatever.

Richie grins, sitting down in the driver’s seat. “Whatever makes you sleep at night, cutie.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and puts on his seatbelt. The town limit comes faster than he admits, the _YOU ARE NOW LEAVING DERRY… COME AGAIN SOON!_ sign marking it a terrible fucking idea if you ask Eddie—and you should, because he’s right.

Richie lets out a whoop. “GOODBYE, SHITHOLE!”

Eddie laughs and tries to give it the finger, but it’s already a blur behind them. He’s glad.

Once they’re far out of Derry, even the farm fields long past Mike’s disappearing into scraggly new-growth forests, Eddie feels the tension he’s holding in his chest let out, same as when Stan shocks Richie into silence by _GETTING OFF A GOOD ONE!_ or Bev squeezing his hand at a sleepover. The feeling keeps going, but in slow-motion, as he pretends to read but mainly watches the landscape change out the window.

There is a part of him that misses Maine already, all scrappy pines and gray rocks so cool they’re almost blue. Not fucking Derry, that’s for sure, but the familiarity of the landscape. He feels protective of it. He’s always been able to tell when they cross state lines driving down to Albany to visit his aunts, and he takes a quiet—Richie would disagree, but he’s not exactly an expert on _quiet_ , is he? —pride in it. Something he understands, deep down.

He’s always been good at finding his way, knowing how the world changes, which he hates because it means wading through greywater, and loves because he does it for his friends. _If they needed me to I’d do it again. I’d be able to_ , he thinks, the thought coming so surely and so strongly that it surprises him. But he would. Navigating isn’t something you lose.

Navigating isn’t about looking at a map and knowing exactly where you are and where you need to go—it’s more like building your own and fitting yourself in along the way. He misses Maine because now, practiced, it’s easy to build new maps here. But that doesn’t mean he can’t build them in other places too. _I can_.

He knows he’ll have to. There’s no way he’s staying in Derry past graduation. Richie, too—says he’s moving to L.A. as soon as he can. Bev’s a step ahead of them both, gone with her aunt to Portland at the end of August. Even though he’s going too he doesn’t want them to leave. How the fuck is he supposed to spend his time without Richie there to do it with him?! Probably by calling Richie lots. Eddie can hear him picking up, pause-prepare- _Eddie my love, twice in one day?_ and tries to think of a good answer for him. _Sorry, meant to call your sister, Richie my love, how do you like that, huh?_ and then grimaces, because what the fuck is that? He goes back to his comic.

They merge with the coast getting closer to Portland, close enough to see water behind the houses that start to appear but too far to tell what the waves are like today.

“Open a window. Sea air’s good for you, right?”

They need to be cranked manually, because the RV is still a disaster that Eddie is about to drive across the continental United States. Lucky him. He gets up to do it. It doesn’t budge, because the RV is—still—a disaster.

Richie glances back. “Try turning it the other way.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Which one of us fixed the fucking engine, Rich? It’s broken.”

“Yeah, and which one of us got an A in physics this year?”

Eddie groans. “Fine, nerd. But I would have too, except _someone_ said ‘Hey, Eds, come study with me,’ and then had me listen to their mixes for three hours straight.” Richie barely studies and aces everything he tries. It’s not as frustrating as Eddie pretends it is. Richie’s just smart like that.

“Ah, you loved it.” Richie smiles, somehow quieter than usual.

Eddie forgets what he was going to say. Maybe a little—very little—bit, but he’s not telling Richie that. “Fine, dick, pull over and open it yourself.”

Richie turns into the first rest stop he sees and tries to park. Eddie almost has an aneurysm watching him, so he makes Richie switch with him.

When he turns the car off he regrets it, because the window is already open and Richie has a shit-eating grin on. Fuck. Thirty-two hours left in the car total, give or take. Richie’ll bring this up twenty times, easy.

“Your looks aren’t going to carry you forever, Eddie my love.”

Richie looks so happy that Eddie almost smiles in spite of himself. Fucking Diseasemobile—he swears he tried it both ways. Eddie is ready to start the car and never look Richie Tozier in the eye again, but Richie recognizes where they are—Ogunquit, came here with Mags once—and says they should stop for a bit. Eddie’s fine with it. It’ll be nice to explore, and it’s easier to start when Richie’s with him to do it.

Richie double-checks the lock on the RV. “Can’t have anybody else sneaking into Sonia, Spaghetti. We’re exclusive.”

Eddie punches him in the arm. “You know, that’s a good thing, Rich. Keeps you out of the way while I’m busy with your sister.”

“You wouldn’t, Eds! God, all the chicks we meet are going to be _devastated_ when they realize you’re not on the market.”

“Asshole,” Eddie frowns. Like anybody’d look at him when Richie’s right there, all fucking _tall_ and _I’m-looking-right-at-you-cutie!_ -y. “I think your sister’s the only one worried about this.”

“Nope, I mean it, cutest boy in the country,” Richie says, sounding way too much like he fucking means it. “Going to have to fend them off,” he adds, knocking his shoulder against Eddie’s.

Eddie’s stomach twists. Richie’s looking down at him, big eyes and bigger glasses, like he’s waiting for something.

Eddie doesn’t get what it is, and he’s worried that he should get it, and should be saying something back, and he still doesn’t get what to say or how to say it or even why he would, and he hates not getting it more, way more, than he hates Richie calling him _Eddie my love_.

He looks at the street instead. “Let’s get ice cream,” he says.

Richie agrees, launching into a recap of their flavour rankings. Mint chip is still the biggest point of contention. It tastes like fucking toothpaste, if toothpaste _made_ your teeth rot. Eddie doesn’t know how Richie stands it. His running theory is that Richie mostly like it because Eddie can’t steal any—almost fair, if the actual flavour didn’t ruin that you got to have it all to yourself.

Eddie goes for the usual—vanilla, whipped cream, sprinkles, and a maraschino cherry but only because Richie eats them. “It’s classic, Richie, you can’t go wrong. You get this shit with cookie dough? Way too much, you need the vanilla to make the sprinkles work with the whipped cream. It’s not just some—” he lets Richie pick off the cherry, “—some _sugarfest_ , it’s _balanced_.”

Richie, unsurprisingly, licks his double scoop of mint chip. “What, balanced because it all sucks equally?”

Eddie switches his ice cream to his left hand so he can gesture better. “No, it—” he points at his ice cream, “—is fucking _tasty_ , because you—” he points at Richie, “—have shitty taste buds.”

He grabs Richie’s cone and takes a bite straight out of it, regretting it the second the cold hits his teeth. He almost gags at the flavour. _Mint_ fucking _ice cream_. “God, whoever invented this shit was dumber than you.”

Richie smirks. “But still smart enough to open a window?”

Eddie licks Richie’s ice cream, and almost gags again. Mint chip isn’t any better the second time around. Worth it, though, for Richie’s scrunched-up smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> richie is right this is a pro mint chocolate chip ice cream account


	4. Are you waiting to touch me?

Richie leads them down to the beach as they finish eating.

“It’s not even ten. I seriously might be sleepwalking, Eds.”

“At least the beach is quiet.” Eddie can’t see anybody else out this early from where he is. It isn’t even along the shore—the beach is an island, only about twenty feet out from the marina behind it but far enough that Eddie notices a shift crossing the wooden footbridge to get to it. He feels the outer pocket of his fanny pack for his tweezers as he does—Richie always gets slivers. Probably karma.

The water stays shallow until far out, so they take their shoes off and wade. Eddie doesn’t remember the last time he actually went in the ocean. It’s colder than he’s used to—not paralyzing, but every time a wave splashes against dry skin it sears a line across his legs.

He reaches down and swipes his hand quickly across the water, easier means than actually touching him to the same end: _Richie, look at me_. He doesn’t know why he wants to splash Richie so badly, needs to have him look up at Eddie. He wants to make him laugh, maybe. Richie’s laugh is sun on the ocean.

Richie jumps back. “Spaghetti!”

“You had ice cream on your face.” Eddie shrugs, one-too-many levels deep of saying something other than he means to have it be believable.

“Oh, yeah?” Richie grins. Both of his hands are planted in the water, poised. Richie raises his eyebrows, waiting for a go-ahead.

Eddie sighs. He may as well. “Lay it on me, dick.”

Richie sends a wall of water at him. Eddie gets a mouthful of it, which he probably deserves. Richie probably deserves his own in return, so Eddie splashes back.

“All you got, Eds?”

Eddie makes a face. “You wish.”

He splashes Richie again, and again and so much he understands why Mike wants to spend his life in Florida tides, all of the pull of the current and none of the biting awareness of cold New England water.

He stops understanding when he stumbles trying to use both his arms to hit Richie with what would have been a really good soaker and falls flat on his ass, in shallow enough water that he hits more sand than ocean. Mike should try the mountains instead.

Richie plops down beside him. “Does this mean I win?”

Eddie makes another face. “Do you think there’s a winner here?”

They’re both soaked through, Richie’s lips a little blue, and the novelty of the ocean is quickly disappearing.

“Nope,” Richie says, and lies down in the water.

Eddie lies down carefully beside him. Richie’s shoulder is almost touching his. Water tickles Eddie’s ears every time another wave laps up at the shore. He can feel them both like they’re reaching for him; the waves a steady in-out and Richie a dangerous pull, exponentially magnetic.

He digs his hands into the sand, already regretting getting it underneath his fingernails. Richie’s not reaching out to him. Eddie’s the one letting himself get pulled. If he tries hard enough, he can stop it.

“Ah’d—” Richie is in his Butch Cassidy Voice again. “No, wait, I got it—Let’s you and me jump in that river.”

“Don’t know how you know a line from the movie when you’ve obviously never heard Paul Newman say a word in your life.”

Richie looks at him. “How do you know a line from the movie, Eddie my love?”

Eddie blushes. “My mom likes sixties movies. What’s your excuse?”

“Just like it. Plus, Butch Cassidy Voice is a cooler name for it than Random Cowboy Voice.”

“Well, it’s not the worst Random Cowboy Voice in the world.”

Richie smiles. “Thanks, Eds.”

Eddie sits up. His hand feels like it’s pulling him again. He reaches into the water, scooping some up and bringing it over quickly to scrub Richie’s face. He avoids his glasses. He doesn’t realize he’s actually done it until it’s too late. _But I wanted to do it_ , he thinks. It’s safe but enough, just enough, to stop him from doing something more. Pushing the boundary he can’t find. “You actually did have ice cream on your face,” he says. “Don’t want you to bring ants into the RV.”

Richie looks at him, still lying back against the sand. His summer freckles are back in full force. Eddie doesn’t want to move away yet. Richie doesn’t move either, looking at him with a feeling Eddie can’t describe but wants to learn how to. He looks so familiar with his hair flopped out around him, still nowhere close to being tamed even though it’s soaking wet.

 _Are you waiting for me?_ Eddie wants to ask. He moves back instead. “See, another reason mint chip sucks. Gets green all over you.”

“Whatever you say, Eds. Hey, want to drive?” Richie stretches and stands up.

Eddie agrees.

When he sits down behind the wheel, it’s not as monumental as he expects it to be. Even though it’s his first time, not counting the once-around the block that Went made them both try, it feels normal. It feels like where he’s supposed to be going, and what he’s supposed to be doing.

“I think we could do this without stopping,” Richie says when they switch drivers after their lunch break—Maggie’s sandwiches, enough to get them through the first couple of days.

Eddie glares at him. Richie’s eyes widen. “I’m serious! You grab the wheel and I keep my foot on the gas until you’re on the seat—” he mimes it, crossing one hand over the other and back again, “—what? Come on, you’d just sit and I’d slide out from under you.”

Eddie gets a very vivid image in his head of sitting in Richie’s lap. _Too close_ , shouts Eddie’s head.

Richie gets one too, by the looks of his cheeks. “’Kay, forget it, I meant like Mr. Bean, have you seen that one? He brushes his teeth while he’s driving, gets completely ready for work with his _feet_ on the wheel, fuckin’ good idea, I mean, look at you, Eds, you could definitely pull it off.”

Eddie cuts in. “Could I?” He cringes. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

Richie looks embarrassed. Eddie feels it. He shakes his head. “Either way, I’m tired, so it’s your turn, asshole.”

Richie ends up driving the rest of the way. Eddie’s glad they don’t change drivers again—saves them both from whatever thing worse than _could I?_ Eddie would blurt out the next time around.

They end up at a campsite in some state forest on the edge of Pennsylvania, one of Went’s suggestions. Wherever is fine by Eddie, as long as he gets to go to sleep in the next half hour. Driving is good, but it tires him out.

Being with Richie is good, too, and it doesn’t quite tire him out, but it does make him more aware that he’s actually _here_. And that this isn’t a day trip, he’s not going to turn around—they’ve barely even started. _Only us just us only us for a week_. He’s never spent this much time feeling so _alone_ with Richie. Duh, he is most days, but at home there’s always somebody on their way in or out, on the phone, borrowing something, _something_. Here there’s no Bev to pull Richie away for a smoke, no Stan to roll his eyes with Eddie when Richie makes a joke, no Big Bill for all of them to fall back on when they’re out of ideas.

Eddie misses all the Losers, but it’s not so bad having just him and Richie. It’s not like the amount of attention he gets from Richie—and gives back—has changed much. Maybe a _Hey, next exit_ , more, but for the most part, Eddie thinks about talking to Richie as much as he usually does: nearly always.

A part of him thinks it’s normal, like driving the RV. What they’re supposed to do, how they always are. He can’t help his mind thinking _I have to tell Richie about this_ first. Richie has a lot to say to him, too.

But another part of him, a part of him that makes his palms sweaty, is scared of it—because it means it’s always Richie, at home and here.

He wants to reach for his inhaler again. He hates that he wants to.

He finds his pajamas in his suitcase and walks to the bedroom, eyes squeezed shut to force himself out of it.

“Usually it’s the other Kaspbrak I see in here but you’re welcome to join me too, Spagheds.”

Eddie opens his eyes. Richie’s lying on the bed, hands behind his head. Eddie turns and walks back out. Fuck. Why does Richie get the bed? Fuck again. He can’t sleep on that fucking Goodwill couch. He walks back in. “I’m taking the bed, dickhead. First pick, I get dibs for fixing the engine.”

“Eddie my love, you sat on your ass for two weeks reading _my_ comics while _I_ was busting my balls to finish all of this. Those dibs belong to my nuts, if anyone.”

“Okay, _I_ was reading _your_ comics as payback for you taking my X-Men.” He barely realizes where his sentence starts and ends, too tired to think and thinking too much at the same time. He wishes Mike were here to distract him, or at least Stan to help his case.

“Only ‘cause you said I couldn’t work on the engine!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’d have messed it up!” Shit. He doesn’t mean it, not like that. “Fuck, Rich, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

Richie’s already getting up. He’s in a STREET FIGHTER II – THE WORLD WARRIOR shirt Bev found for him at Goodwill, two sizes too big but still perfect. “It’s fine. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Eddie feels his whole body tense. He lies face-down on the stupid fucking bed, muscles refuses to give in and let him rest. It’s not even about Richie messing it up or not. When he looks at the RV, he wants so badly for it to work out that he can’t think about anything else. He wants to be in control, just for once, because so little is ever up to him and look how things always work out, right?

Still really fucking shitty of him, though.

He wants a better way to say things. It’s always been like that with Richie, some mutually-beneficial annoyance they play off of, neither of them really meaning it, more a way to say _I’m glad you’re here, dickhead, but don’t make me admit it, because_ … It’s not the greatest way to go about things sometimes—everything so fucking _unspoken_ , buried under a layer of subtext they can both worm their way through but not lacking in uncertainty. But Eddie doesn’t know how else to go about it. Even whispering it, admitting to Richie _no matter what, I’m glad you’re here,_ would be too loud.

In Derry, that’s for sure. Maybe things are different here.

It’s a straight shot down the I-99 the next morning. Richie tosses him the keys once Eddie finishes eating breakfast, and they don’t make eye contact again. Eddie keeps his eyes on the road and counts down the hours.

He makes it twenty minutes before pulling into a rest stop with a faded sign advertising THE FAMILY RESTAURANT. _Fuck it,_ he thinks. _I’ll make things different here. I’ll make it this way_. “This fucking sucks.”

Richie winces. “Yep,” he says, popping the P.

“I fucking hate that I said that, and I don’t mean it at all. For real. I said I wanted to work on the engine on my own because I wanted it to be my thing and the RV made me feel good. I know you’d do just as well, nerd.”

Richie twitches at the mouth. “Sonia makes me feel good too, Eds.”

Eddie thinks this is the most restraint he’s ever had in his life, because he lets that one slide. “I don’t want you to think I don’t want you here. Ever.” Saying it makes him nervous. “I mean it. A hundred fucking dollars to drive this shit for a _week?_ I’m here because I like hanging out with you.” He nods, and then adds, “asshole.”

Richie is flicking his index finger against his thumb. He slows it down to a stop. “It was a dick move.”

Eddie nods.

“It’s okay if we talk sometimes, y’know?” Richie continues. “Take it from the Trashmouth, talking’s not so bad.”

“Sometimes I like talking to you so much I don’t know how to do it,” Eddie says. It feels like a confession. Pleading guilty to some terrible crime, _I swear to tell the truth the whole truth (maybe) and nothing but the truth (if I can)_ , and now he’s holding his breath, putting on his best face. Jury-ready: _I like you a lot and please say it’s okay and maybe I can talk a little more_.

Richie’s eyes go soft at the corners. “Hey, no fair, that’s what I was gonna say.”

Eddie can’t help laughing a little. “Serious?”

“Half.” Richie smiles.

The both of them now. Confessing. “I like talking to you,” Eddie says again. It’s easier this time. “So if I ever go too far, fucking—fucking beep me, okay, Rich?”

Richie raises his eyebrows. “Been trying to beep you my whole life, cutie. But I will. Promise.”

Eddie punches him on the shoulder. “Good.” He nods his head in the direction of the restaurant. “Want brunch? My treat.”

“You’re gonna wish you hadn’t agreed to that, Eds.”

Probably. It’s okay, though. It’s for Richie.

Eddie double-checks the FDA – _PASS_ sign taped to the window before they go in, but the food at THE FAMILY RESTAURENT is the best he’s had in a while. They both get their usuals—waffles for Eddie because you should get breakfast food at brunch, and chicken fingers for Richie, who hates breakfast food and is also wrong.

The waitress leaves the can of Reddi-wip at the table. Eddie tries his best not to use up the entire thing, and fails, mainly because Richie keeps grabbing it and threatening to spray it into his mouth.

“Do you know how many health codes that’s probably against?” Eddie whispers. “What if somebody else has to use that after you?” It’s a diner on a Tuesday morning in the middle of nowhere and is, expectedly, empty except for them, but that’s not the point.

Richie moves the nozzle an inch away from his mouth to talk. “Flaw in your logic, Spaghetti. No worries about somebody using this after me if I finish it now.”

Eddie reaches his hand out across the table. “Fine, but I want some more for my food before you get too close to it.”

“Lucky I’m generous.” Richie puts it in Eddie’s hand. _Bingo_. Eddie yanks his arm back, tilts his head to the ceiling, and sprays as much as he can directly into his mouth, trying his hardest not to laugh.

Eddie swallows. Richie grabs the can.

“Sneaky, Spaghetti.” He kicks Eddie under the table. “Should’ve known.”

Eddie scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Richie foot is wedged against his under the table.

Richie shrugs, still not moving his leg back. Is it no big deal? It must not be a big deal. Like sharing the hammock, Eddie’s arm resting on Richie’s calf. Not a big deal, even if it feels like it. _Not a big deal._

“You’re surprising,” Richie says, and sprays more whipped cream into his mouth.

 _Surprising_ feels the same as Richie’s stretched-out leg against his. Eddie frowns. “Am I?”

“’Course, Eds,” Richie says, softer.

“Oh,” Eddie says. He stretches his hand out for the can. Their feet are still touching. Eddie slides his foot towards Richie, then hooks the back of his ankle around Richie’s. He can feel his heart beating. He sprays more Reddi-wip and hands the can back to Richie, sliding his foot back to resting against Richie’s as he does. Richie still doesn’t react. No big deal then, after all.

They trade back and forth until the can runs out. Eddie tips the waitress a hundred percent, plus what he thinks is the cost of a can of Reddi-wip.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Richie groans, unlocking the RV.

Eddie thinks he might too, but only nods because he’s afraid of opening his mouth and actually doing it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just realized italics dont copy and paste so i am losing all the formatting. oopsie woopsie! i cannot read this again akfhg but noted for my other fics
> 
> edit: nvm going back through it bec it takes like 2 seconds lol. hi!

“Turn off here,” Eddie says.

Richie glances at him. “I thought we were avoiding cities.”

“Yeah, but—” there’s a series of towns along their route named _BEAVER – BEAVER FALLS – BIG BEAVER – NEW BEAVER_ and Eddie makes the executive decision to avoid opening that can of worms— “I thought it’d be nice. Surprising.”

It’s mid-afternoon by the time they stop, but neither of them are hungry post-bad-decision-whipped-cream so they skip lunch to explore.

“Y’know, when I thought, _sexy summer road trip, me and Eds alone on the open road,_ Pittsburgh wasn’t exactly top of the list,” Richie says as they start walking.

Eddie looks up at him. “There’s got to be something to do here.”

There isn’t—at least nothing they can both agree on—so they end up sitting on a concrete dock on the river.

“C’mon, Eds, just one jump in with me.”

“Nuh-uh. No way. Do you know how much bacteria is multiplying in that as we speak? And that’s not just me. I’ve read articles. _New York Times_. Fucked shit. Full of toxic pollutants, you’ll get infections you haven’t even heard of.”

Richie just laughs. It sounds so light, his eyes all crinkly. He makes up Voices for the people walking by them instead, and Eddie laughs more than he expects to.

“Trashmouth’s future in comedy is looking bright,” he tells Richie. Trying to say what he means.

Richie smiles wide. “L.A. won’t know what hit them, Eds.”

Eddie likes seeing Richie so happy, but he can’t help the sinking feeling he gets when he realizes how far away Richie’s going. He doesn’t want this to end. Richie’s so close. Eddie needs more time—to figure things out, or just to have them. “They really won’t, Rich.”

“And no more Derry.” Richie sounds relieved.

“No more fucking Derry,” Eddie repeats. If nothing else, that.

“My uncle Will, the one we’re visiting, he used to live in Derry too.” Richie’s tapping his foot. “He left because of his boyfriend.”

Eddie’s vision disappears for a second, then reappear. His boyfriend. Oh. “He’s gay?”

It’s the first time he’s ever said the word out loud. _Gay_ means _CUT DOWN AS THEY GROW UP: A.I.D.S. STALKS GAY TEEN-AGERS_ and Henry Bowers yelling _cocksucker_ and Greta Keene narrowing her eyes at him and Richie from behind the pharmacy counter, and he isn’t any of that, right?

He doesn’t say the word gay, because even without trying everybody already thinks he’s too close to it.

“Yeah,” Richie taps his foot faster. “They were living together, him and Lucas—that’s his boyfriend—in Derry. Didn’t even say they were together and still got all kinds of shit for it.”

 _Girly boy_ , Eddie thinks. _Blowjob for a dime fifteen cents for overtime I’ll do it for free Eddie_ and not just It either—Bowers, _town’s full of little fairies_ and a smack on the back of the head, and his mother and anyone at all, if he thinks about it. Eddie wants to cry. He feels, past this, some grim acceptance that of course it all happened because it happened in Derry.

“Fuck, Richie, it gets me so—” he doesn’t know how to finish. “Sad.”

It doesn’t hit him until he says it just how much it does. Because _gay_ means love, too, doesn’t it? Richie’s uncles aren’t all the things people say.

 _Gay,_ he tests out in his head. Nothing happens.

“I can’t wait to get the fuck out. Lucas says L.A.’s really nice,” Richie says. “Good weather all the time.”

Eddie smiles. “Imagine that.”

“Hey, speaking of nice places, how come we didn’t go through Big Beaver? You have _no_ idea how much I was looking forward to taking a picture with that sign.”

They stop so Richie can buy a disposable camera and Eddie drives them there anyways, because fuck it. _Gay_ , he says in his head again. Nothing wrong with that. What does Greta Keene know about him and Richie anyways?

When they finally turn in for the night, at a campground just past Columbus, Eddie ignores how much he wants to crawl out of his skin and plants himself on the couch. “I can sleep here tonight, Rich.”

Richie grins. “Lonely enough to let the bedbugs keep you company?”

Eddie sets his jaw. “They’re still better to sleep with than your sister.”

“But never as good as your mom, Eduardo,” Richie calls out, walking to the bedroom. He stops halfway there. “Thank you.”

“The things I do for you, Richie.”

He wakes up the next morning with a knot in his back the size of Richie’s head. He groans and sits up. Richie’s already up, in his Street Fighter shirt again.

“Still glad you took the couch, Eds?” Richie hands him a mini-box of Cheerios from the kitchen cabinet and sits down beside him on the couch.

“Yes,” Eddie lies.

“You can say it sucked, Eddie my love.”

Love. Love love love. Eddie’s cheeks turn red. “Okay, did I _like_ it? Technically, I liked that you didn’t have to fuck your back two nights in a row—”

“Only holding back on the ‘fuck your back’ potential ‘cause I want you to listen to my mixtapes to day but _wow,_ Eds.” Richie nudges him.

Eddie ignores him. He heard it as soon as he said it. “We’re listening to your mixtapes today?”

“Yeah. Brought ‘em all, just for this.”

“Made it one-and-a-half whole days in without bringing them up. Should’ve taken Stan’s bet on it. Can we start with your Bowie one?” Eddie likes _Heroes_.

They finish it, and three more, crossing through to Indiana, then Illinois. By the time they give up for the day, halfway through Missouri, Eddie has had _Head Over Heels_ stuck in his head for five towns.

Richie pulls them into a parking lot for the night. He shrugs. “No signs that say we can’t. If anyone says anything, you just talk to ‘em. They’ll look at your cute face and forget what they were ever worried about, guaranteed.”

 _I never find out till I’m head over heels_ , Eddie’s head sings. Ugh. “Swear to god, if I get arrested in the middle of buttfuck nowhere for this, with _you_ , you’re not getting out of that cell.”

Richie grins. “I’ll take that risk. If I don’t make it out, tell Mrs. K. I love her.”

He drops onto the couch, reaching underneath it to grab a pillow. Eddie sighs.

“This is stupid, Rich.” The couch sucks. “Just sleep in the bed with me.”

“Sure, Eds,” Richie says. He doesn’t sound it.

 _Something happens and I’m head over heels I never find out till I’m head over heels something happens_ , Eddie’s head repeats as he walks to the bedroom. _Thanks a lot, Richie_ , he thinks.

Richie follows him, but stops at the doorframe. “This is okay?”

Eddie purses his lips. “I think it’s too late to avoid picking up your germs, so.”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He’s not sure what he’d finish it with. _So we may as well sleep together?_ Not if he ever wants to hear the end of it from Richie. _So what are you waiting for?_ He does want to know… _So I’m head over heels._ Fuck. Eddie lifts up his pajamas. “Let me change first.”

Richie turns away, head down to the floor of the hallways as he does.

Eddie clears his throat once he finishes, suddenly worried he’ll be too loud.

He looks up just in time to see Richie jumping at him and realizes what’s going on too late to do anything useful about it—Richie lands on the bed elbows-first, half on top of Eddie, before rolling off of him and onto the far side. Eddie groans, feeling like if you took _head over heels_ literally. “What made you think that would work?”

He can feel Richie laughing beside him. “Who says it didn’t work?”

“I don’t know, all of it?” Eddie turns to him to say more but forgets it. He’s closer to Richie than he realized.

Richie flicks him on the forehead. “’Night, Spaghetti.”

Eddie pulls the blanket from the bottom of the bed and flips it over both of them. “’Night, Richie.”

It feels so normal. There’s nothing wrong, nothing scary about it. Richie and no monsters and no germs—here now, Eddie doesn’t know how he ever entertained the possibility. Richie is as far from that as you can get. It’s just Richie and Eddie, like it always is—Richieandeddie, it sounds like when the Losers say it. He falls asleep repeating it. Richieandeddie. He likes it.

Eddie wakes up significantly less comfortable, with one of Richie’s arms square across his forehead and one of his legs hooked around both of Eddie’s; underneath Eddie’s left and back up overtop his right. Eddie can feel Richie’s foot where it rests on top of his, a little too boney but he doesn’t want to move it. It reminds him of right after _that_ summer. Richie was always taller than Eddie, as far back as he can remember knowing him, but as soon as school started Richie got taller than everybody—so fast Eddie doesn’t even remember him growing, just remembers looking up one day and realizing Richie was up there too.

Eddie thinks it took Richie longer than him to realize how tall he had gotten, because the _Eds bite size what a cutie_ jokes didn’t start until Richie got a glint in his eyes at the Snow Ball that year and said _hey, Spaghetti, not with the other elves this time around?_

He called Richie a fuckwad and said he’d go stag with Stan instead next year, but he didn’t mind the jokes, not really. Richie having new material meant Richie spending more time trying to perform it, and since Richie’s new material was mostly about Eddie, it also meant Richie dragging Eddie to his house after school every day for a week to try it out on him. Eddie smiles. That was when his _Reasons not to come over to Richie’s_ list started, less a list of reasons not to come over and more a list of reasons why Richie’s was so much fun.

Granted, Richie could’ve showered more in tenth grade, he stands by that one, but Eddie really hopes he’s since grown out of it.

 _Richie, physical hazard_ came along because when Richie grew it was like he lost track of his limbs—and Eddie, with the unfortunate role of _Guy who somehow always ends up next to Richie_ , ended up finding most of them with his face.

Richie feels like that now: everywhere around Eddie, always touching him somehow. Eddie misses it—not getting kicked in the stomach by one of Richie’s legs lying across from him, but touch not meaning anything. Not having to worry about Richie hopping off the back of Eddie’s bike riding double once they get back into town from the Barrens, _Mrs. K. won’t like me seeing other people_ , just holding onto Eddie’s shoulders enough to be too much.

He misses sleepovers, safe in Richie’s house, arms drifting toward each other from side-by-side sleeping bags.

It’s like that now, nobody around to tell them what they’re doing wrong. He doesn’t want it to end and he doesn’t want to know what that means.

He looks at Richie, still fast asleep and drooling about a cup of spit onto the pillow. Eddie still doesn’t want it to end, but makes a mental note to flip the pillow next time he’ s in Richie’s bedroom.

He lays there thinking _Richieandeddie_ again when Richie yawns and untangles himself.

“About time. It’s fucking eleven.”

Richie yawns again. “Morning, cutie. Sorry, somebody’s snoring kept waking me up last night.”

He does not snore. Eddie would know if he snored. What if he has fucking sleep apnea? Is he going to have to wear one of those fucking masks? What if he doesn’t wear one? That’d be worse for his sleep apnea, wouldn’t it? “Nice try. I don’t snore.”

Richie snorts. “And I don’t fuck your mom.”

“No, but see, that’s the thing, you actually _don’t—_ ”

“Take your time to process, Eds, you snore like a fuckin’ bear. Hey, is that why Mrs. K. calls you that? ‘Cause I always wondered how she came up with that one. Eds, classic, Spaghetti, duh,” Richie ticks them off on his fingers, “cutie, came up with that one the first time I looked at you, thought _cute! cute! cute!_ and it was over for me, but _Eddie-bear_. That takes some talent.”

“Like you’d know anything about talent, Trashmouth.”

“’Least this Trashmouth has the decency to let others sleep in peace.” Richie reaches over Eddie for his glasses, sitting on the bedside table, and presses them up against his nose with his palm. “I’m telling you. Next to you every sleepover for a decade, I would know. It’s why you’re prettier than me, ‘cause I could never get my beauty sleep with you around.”

Eddie bites the inside of his lip. “I was thinking about those sleepovers just now. I miss them.”

Richie reaches over, like he’s going for his glasses again, but stops short and rests his hand on Eddie’s arm, drumming it with his fingers. “Miss ‘em too, Eds.”

Eddie feels so much, so fast, it scares him. He doesn’t answer, just stares up at the ceiling. It’s not the same concrete block of fear holding him in place like the morning they left Derry, though. Not that kind of scared. He just wants to stay here.


	6. In this light you look like Poseidon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this entire fic just so i could have this chapter be my thesis for strawberry blond by mitski as a reddie song. and then i didnt even name the chapter title after it!!!!! oops. also nvm haha found the way you input with formatting!!!! joke is on me!!!

Kansas is the flattest fucking place Eddie has ever seen. He’s been driving for the past three hours and can count the number of times the landscape has changed on one hand—once, from flat and yellow fields to flat and green fields.

“This might turn me into a flat-earther,” Richie says. He’s cross-eyed, looking at the finger he’s been prodding himself in the forehead with for the past ten minutes.

“Your eyes are going to get stuck like that.”

“Aw, Eds, c’mon. _Your_ eyes are going to get stuck like that,” Richie says, and, too fast for Eddie, leans over and pokes him in the forehead.

“No fair, I’m watching the road,” Eddie replies. He’s a bad liar. Right now he’s considering that they might not be moving at all, because he doesn’t remember the last time another car went by. “See if there’s anything interesting around, I want to stop for dinner.”

The only thing on the map Richie can find is a reservoir next to a state park, but they both agree that anything is better than losing their minds on the shitty excuse for an interstate for another three hours, so Eddie signals off the freeway and onto the shittier excuse for a backroad.

They climb on top of the RV to eat, Eddie because he wants to and Richie because Eddie does. The reservoir stretches out ahead of them and fields do the same behind them, both so far Eddie can’t tell where they end. It feels nice this way—nobody expecting them to show up ahead of them, nobody behind waiting for them to move.

“We should look around,” Richie says, climbing back down the ladder at the side of the RV.

Eddie nods. “Maybe swim.”

It’s been hot all day, hot enough that he doesn’t care how clean the water is.

They end up at what Eddie would bet money is the biggest hill in the state—all of ten feet, with a rocky dropoff on one side into the lake.

Richie peers over the side. “C’mon, Spaghetti, let’s do it. The jump at the quarry’s gotta be five times this.”

There’s a sign warning _Diving prohibited_ and another reading _No lifeguard on duty – use at your own risk_ , but they only ever put those at spots where everybody jumps, so Eddie presses his lips together and nods.

They strip down to their underwear. Eddie looks at the ground, dirty and grassy, then at the water, evening-calm, and then at the ground again, carefully avoiding looking at Richie in front of him. He knows Richie wouldn’t care if Eddie saw him changing, but he feels wrong for it. Like he’s the one peeling back layers of Richie, waiting for something horrible to happen when he hits the wrong one, It warning him _don’t look at the other boys_ and his mother making him promise: _I’m not, I wouldn’t_. Nothing happens.

“’Kay, Eds,” Richie says, moving closer to bump Eddie’s shoulder with his, then away again. Eddie looks up. Richie has one hand on his forehead shielding his eyes; the sun is setting and it’s getting bright across the water. His summer freckles are starting to show on his chest too, not as dark as the ones on his cheeks.

Eddie wonders what it would be like to touch them.

He hears his heartbeat in his ears as he thinks it but he still wants to touch Richie, golden with his summer freckles. Touch his smile too, see if he can figure out from its dimpled corners and easy cupid’s bow what it’s like to have a smile that bright. Touch Richie like before, when it didn’t mean anything? _No_ , he thinks forcefully. He wants it to mean something this time. Just not what everybody else thinks it does.

Eddie steps to the edge, peering over. “If I land on a rock, you have to hitchhike the rest of the way.”

Richie smiles wide and looks over too.

“Together?” he asks and puts his hand out for Eddie.

Eddie takes it, locking his fingers in with Richie’s. He feels like the world is shrinking around them, because neither of them move to jump. Richie bites his lip but doesn’t let go, so Eddie doesn’t either.

Maybe he could touch Richie’s freckles like they’re touching now. This feels like it means something, and he may not know what it is but he knows it’s not bad. Eddie moves his thumb across Richie’s hand. He wonders if this is what touching all of Richie is like, if the skin on his cheeks is softer. Richie’s never fucking moisturized in his life, so it’s anyone’s game.

He moves his thumb over Richie’s hand again. He wants to move his whole hand. He wonders if Richie would pull away when he did.

Eddie knows he’s not having an asthma attack, but his breathing seems like the loudest thing in the world. He feels the openness of the reservoir now, saying _you are the only ones_ , and it means Eddie is free, but it also means it’s all on him. _The only ones who can_ , it says.

He feels Richie’s thumb scrape against his knuckles, so little he might be imagining it. He swallows and keeps his hand still, waiting, but nothing else comes and he keeps his hand still in return.

Richie exhales. “Ready to make like your mom and get wet?”

Eddie holds his free hand up. “I’ll push you,” he says, trying not to think of his other hand still fitted in with Richie’s.

Richie lunges for him and Eddie tries to dodge him, both attempts half-hearted and equally ineffective because, fucking surprise, it’s hard to avoid someone you’re attached to and also about to jump off a cliff with.

“In three?”

Eddie plants one foot forward and looks up at the sky. It’s pinkish now. “Two.”

“One,” Richie says, and they jump.

Alone in the air with him it suddenly occurs to Eddie that Richie, with his summer freckles and too-big smile, is beautiful.

Eddie lets go of Richie’s hand when they hit the water, instinct taking over, but underwater he feels Richie find it again and they come up holding hands. Eddie gasps as he treads water, two legs and an arm and a Richie holding him up. He feels so relieved, both at having made it through the jump and knowing without fear, even for an instant, that Richie is beautiful.

Richie pulls Eddie back so they’re both floating, looking up at the sky.

“Feels like we’re in the middle of nothing,” Richie says.

“Took you this long to realize we were in Kansas?” Eddie replies, but Richie is right. The sun is dipping down along the horizon and around the ripples indenting the surface the water is reflected bright, almost to white. The glassier the water becomes the brighter it gets, the blanker. Eddie tilts his head to avoid the light and gets water in his ear. He makes a note to sleep with it to the pillow tonight; coming home with an ear infection on top of leaving in the first place will make his mother’s inevitable month of passive-aggression even worse.

They climb out when the sun disappears and it gets too dark for comfort. Even with the stars the reservoir is back to feeling more unknown than open, too much for the both of them after the sewers.

They both get scrapes on too-slippery rocks trying to pull themselves out of the water.

“It’s the fucking algae,” Eddie tells Richie, hunched-over and pulling bandaids out of his first aid kit. “Too much nutrient runoff and it grows everywhere, fucks with the whole water system. Blue or purple?”

He holds up the bandaids for Richie to pick.

“Purple,” Richie says. “Nerdy stuff, Eds. Mike teach you that?”

Eddie gestures his hand so-so, and sits down next to Richie on the floor.

“His grandad.” He squeezes a blob of Polysporin onto Richie’s scraped knee and flips the bandaid on in the same motion, muscle memory. “It’s just good to know.”

He grabs the blue bandaid and does the same to his own knee. When he looks back up Richie is flicking his index finger against his thumb again. Eddie looks farther up, to his summer freckles. Richie still isn’t saying anything. Eddie isn’t sure it’d be easier if he did. He feels like he’s back in mid-air, about to land in water for the second time.

 _Richie is beautiful_ , he thinks again. His mind sets off an alarm that feels like it’s vibrating through his nervous system— _too close_.

He forces it off. Richie is beautiful. Eddie doesn’t think it’s fair for him to be so beautiful, even when he’s sweaty and when his teeth stick out as he smiles and when his eyes look too big behind his glasses.

But he is—he’s beautiful because he makes sense. Some part of Eddie registers that not everyone thinks that, probably not even Sally Mueller, but when Eddie is looking at Richie, trying to figure him out, it doesn’t matter.

He doesn’t know what to do with it. What do you do with all of the beauty in the world, and nowhere to put it?

He understands a little more why Richie looks at him the way he does sometimes, all wide-eyed and waiting for something to get figured out. Maybe Eddie looks at him like that too.

Eddie remembers falling asleep so clearly, _Richie is beautiful_ playing out like another list—his eyelashes and the way he turns and looks at you when he finally stops pedalling to get ahead of you biking to the clubhouse and his Hawaiian shirts and his big eyes and his smile getting wider than you think it should be able to after he says _Eds_ and his hair in the sun right at noon and him, him, him.

He dreams about forgetting Derry and Richie goes with it. Eddie is relieved for a second because in his dream his memories disappear one-by-one, first school then his mother at the pharmacy and then the Losers, Richie holding on by a telephone cord for as long as he can. Once he finally goes Henry Bowers stops yelling _cocksucker_ at him and then Bowers disappears too and it all goes, even It.

Then Eddie panics because he forgets _everything_ , even how to feel, and he wants to be brave enough to feel and he wants the Losers back like an ache in the pit of his stomach, so still half-asleep he reaches for Richie in the pitch-dark and falls back asleep holding onto him.

When he wakes up for real he panics again but it doesn’t last. Richie is close enough by.

It’s stupid, Eddie decides, to let a dream like that have any weight. He would never forget Richie. Even if they were far away, Eddie thinks there would still be a part of him marked _for Richie_ the same way rocky shores in Maine can only really belong where they are. Like if he didn’t know Richie, or any of the Losers for that matter, he’d spend his life waiting to meet them. To get put back where he’s supposed to go.

He stretches his arm, sore from being stuck around Richie all night. It’s the one he broke, scar from having it set fading fast, different world to the ones on his palms—those are still dark and jagged, running diagonally down from his index finger. _It’s right next to your heart line,_ he remembers Bev whispering to him with a sort of reverence in the clubhouse with Mike one night, both of them exchanging doubtful glances at it.

He traces along it like Bev did, following the curve up to the point between his fingers. _Yours ends between the Mount of Jupiter and Saturn, Eddie_. He hears it in her voice. _Purely true love_. She sounded so dreamy saying it. Like it was for real.

He remembers Mike smiling at her and then him, eyes shining and saying _makes sense_.

He’s still not so sure.

He wonders what Richie’s palm lines look like, and thinks of their two palms sealed together, oath and reservoir jump disappearing into one. His heart speeds up again.

He can still feel his heart beating faster than usual as he eats his breakfast, part leftover worries and part happy-fast, beautiful-Richie-with-a-hand-in-his.

They get to the Colorado border that day, _WELCOME TO COLORFUL COLORADO_ greeting them. Eddie smiles as he drives them past it. “This one’s way better than Derry’s.”

“Derry one sucks more than your mom in my bedroom, and that’s saying something.”

“Gross.”

Richie hits Eddie’s shoulder. “Maybe a little.”

“What’re you reading?”

Richie lifts up his comic. “Hot date with Jean Grey.”

“What, can’t get a real one?”

“Trying hard, Spagheds, but your mom can’t take a hint.”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Who’d you pick?”

“Like, for a date? From X-Men?” Eddie’s never considered it. “Rogue, maybe? I like her hair.”

“Huh,” Richie says.

“Rogue is definitely cooler than Jean Grey. And she has a better origin story.”

“No, not that.” Richie shrugs, quieter. “Just didn’t think you’d have one, nerd.”

“Yeah, right, ‘cause not having an X-Men I’d take to the movies makes _me_ the nerd,” Eddie says. “Nerd.”

“Just passing the time while I wait for the one, Eddie my love.”

 _Purely true love_ , Eddie thinks. Jeez.

“Whatever.” He tries to focus on the road again. The highway’s still two-lane and stays Kansas-flat for longer than Eddie thinks, but he can see mountains building in the distance. “Are we going up to Denver first?”

“’Course,” Richie says. “Have to show you the mountains.”

They stop for sandwiches—their last ones, Eddie realizes—at a pull-off next to a field. It’s grassy, a little overgrown, and as far as Eddie can see continues on right up to the mountains waiting for them. Richie takes off his shoes (Eddie gets out his fanny pack and double-checks for tweezers), and they walk in the grass until the noise from the cars on the road fades away.

“All I’m saying is, we’re _definitely_ trespassing,” Eddie says.

“Ah, it’s fine, nobody’s looking.”

Richie tugs on Eddie’s shirt then lies down where he is, eyes on the mountains.

Eddie follows him and sits, arms bracing himself up and knees by his chest.

“Lie down, Eds.” Richie looks so soft right now, stretchy grin reflected off the sun. “S’not so bad, just grass.”

Eddie presses his lips together but does it anyways, putting himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Richie so the backs of their hands touch. Eddie on the left, same as the blood oath—his scar feels burning-fresh, like if he closed his eyes now he’d be back looking at Bill _suh-swear_ ing. He feels the same as he did then: _I would do this over and over for you_.

“Look.” Richie taps him, pointing at a bumblebee over Eddie’s shoulder. It feels as quiet and close as the reservoir. “I can pet them, want to see?”

“Do I want to see you get stung? Not really…”

Eddie trails off as Richie sits up anyways and by some fucking miracle, actually does it. Eddie is blinded by summer joy.

It makes sense when he thinks about it. When Richie isn’t busy talking over the Losers in a Voice or coming up with some new fucking way to annoy the shit out of Eddie, Richie is… gentle.

Eddie thinks Richie wouldn’t agree if he said it, but it’s true. Richie is even gentle with Eddie. Eddie wants to be as gentle with someone as Richie is with him—with all of them.

With Bev, Richie’s gentleness makes her feel safe. Eddie’s mind still reels out cancer statistics like a rolodex when the two of them smoke together, but he sees Richie’s gentleness when they do. Sometimes so much it makes Eddie’s stomach twist, watching Richie lean his head down closer than usual to Bev to talk. When he listens differently. His stomach untwists when he sees Bev laugh back. She doesn’t notice herself anymore. It makes him so happy. Bev makes Eddie see himself more kindly—he should tell her that when they get back—and she deserves to feel the same.

Richie’s gentleness is harder to spot in Stan, but Eddie sees it when Stan calls Richie on his bullshit. Eddie thinks it weighs on Stan sometimes, how much he thinks about everything, but he gets a little lighter when he can crack a joke at Richie’s expense. Eddie gets it. It’s so easy to forget everything else when you’re at it with Richie. He thinks if it made Stan happy, Richie might literally never stop. Not that he’s that far off right now—maybe that’s why.

It's the opposite for Ben; Eddie thinks Richie makes Ben remember himself more—not just that, but understand how important he is. Richie—thank fuck _—_ got past the dumb new kid jokes pretty quickly, but not the attention on Ben. Now whenever Richie jokes about Ben they’re less _jokes_ and more, _we would immediately fall apart without you and here’s how. Ha ha._ It’s true, they would—when Ben was away at that architecture camp in Bar Harbor, one of the beams in the clubhouse broke and it took all six of them left, Mike’s grandad’s toolkit, and two full weeks to fix it. When it broke again the day after Ben got back, he fixed it in twenty minutes with a hammer Mrs. Borton was throwing out and scrap wood he found on his way to the clubhouse. If Ben had been the one to repair the RV, he would’ve been done before school let out for summer and redesigned Went’s toolshed too, just for the heck of it. He misses Ben, forever steady.

Eddie misses Mike’s compassion, and seeing the look on his face when Richie makes him realize just how much of it he has. Richie saves his seriousness for when Mike needs it—and it means the most when Richie is serious, because he never is. When Richie is serious you listen. You know: _I can count on Richie for anything_. Well, you always know that, but a little more. When he’s serious, Richie tells Mike he’s wanted. Eddie loves how wide Mike’s smile gets as Richie says it— _we fuckin’ love you, Mike, best man around_ , and how it gets impossibly wider when everyone else agrees, unprompted. It’s just the way it should be.

But if Richie does one thing intentionally in his life—and it’s a strong possibility, given the rest of his life—it’s reserving a little bit of gentleness just for Bill. Sometimes Eddie calls Richie, says his usual _hey Rich, come watch Indiana Jones with me, bring your allowance ‘cause it’s your turn paying for popcorn and I’m getting a large_ , and Richie, instead of his usual _fine, as long as I get to put on our butter_ , says _you know I love you, Spaghetti, but it’s a Bill Day._ Bill Days are always sleepovers at Richie’s. That’s all Eddie knows, and all he needs to. He’s thankful for them. Sometimes Bill needs remembering.

Eddie doesn’t know what he needs. It’s a comfort that it sometimes feels like neither does Richie. There’s nothing Richie points out for Eddie like he does for the other Losers—Richie just makes him feel…

Richie yells. “Shit!”

Eddie reaches for his fanny pack out of instinct, but Richie is on his feet and running deeper into the field.

“Bee flew away, Spaghetti, hold down the fort,” Richie shouts back at him, turning his head like he’s back in Derry on his bike and there’s nothing but his smile and Eddie’s.

He leaves an indent in the grass like a ripple of water at the reservoir, dipping gently back into the world around it. _God_ , he thinks. He could be happy staying here forever if Richie was there, filling that space. Richie like at the reservoir, pressing his palm to Eddie’s.

The rest of the Losers alongside them like at the quarry, and all of them having Richie’s gentleness for that long.

Richie’s gentleness, he decides, makes Eddie feel loved. Sometimes so much he’s scared of what it means. Other times, so much he worries if he has enough love to give back. But always, no matter what, he feels loved.

Oh.

Then he gets it, which seems stupid to have to _get_ once he realizes, but Eddie is gentle because he loves Richie too.

He wants to pet a bumblebee, and he wants to tell his friends out loud _you matter to me and you’re the only ones in my life that have seen me and you matter so much_ and say it all over again, and he wants to tell himself _it’s okay who you are_ because he looks at Richie and wants to say the same thing.

And he wants to hold Richie forever, which seems equally stupid, because what if Richie doesn’t want to hold him back?

And maybe—he forces himself to keep going, _it’s okay who you are it’s okay who you are it’s okay it’s okay_ —that means something else. Maybe he wants to hold Richie the way he imagines Richie’s uncles hold hands as they walk to dinner, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe he can be gay or at least like Richie and _it’s okay who you are_. Maybe he can be gay and maybe Richie can be okay with that and maybe Richie can still say he’s cute and maybe, maybe maybe, Richie can something-else mean that too. He hopes it so hard it turns into an ache in his chest.

“It lost me, Eds,” Richie says, jogging back up to him. His cheeks are red.

Eddie smiles.

“Don’t call me Eds,” he says for old times’ sake. “Kidding.”

“I’ll call you whatever you want me too,” Richie says.

Eddie jerks up, his own cheeks probably going as red as Richie’s.

“Well, I like Eds,” he says, at the same time as Richie blurts out, “—I mean, Spaghetti is probably my best work, but you know.”

“Oh,” Eddie says cautiously. “Well, if you want—”

“S’okay, I’ll just—” Richie says. He scrunches his mouth to one side. “Never mind.”

“Okay,” Eddie says.

Every other word he tries feels like too much. Like he’ll start talking and talk and talk. He knows Richie said _it’s okay if we talk_ but _about this_ wasn’t even in the cards, and he doesn’t want to mess it up.

 _I never find out till I’m head over he-eels,_ he starts up again as they walk back to the RV. _Something happens and I’m head over heels_.

God, Eddie hates Richie’s music choice sometimes.

 _I never find out till I’m head over heels_.

Fuck.


	7. I don’t think I could stand to be where you don’t see me

Eddie forgets how to sleep like a normal person when they turn in that night, meaning to drive farther but ending up in Boulder.

He knows something is different, even if Richie doesn’t, and that’s enough to make him freak out on the inside, thin layer of _I just can’t believe we’re almost there_ not doing a very good job of hiding it.

He doesn’t think it’s _wrong_ to think about Richie being beautiful, exactly. He thinks Bev is beautiful too, even if not in quite the same way. But _Richie is beautiful_ also means: _I_ like _like Richie_. There’s no going back from that.

Everywhere he puts his hands feels too close to Richie, _this close?_ getting answered _yes,_ please _this close_ , so he ends up turning square on his side, facing away from Richie. His back already hurts—he kicks himself for not bringing a heat pack, you never know, even in the summer—but looking at Richie right now would be worse. He knows that if he could he would look at Richie, current so strong he’d get swept under right away. It’s not one of those rip currents either, calm at the surface so you don’t realize what’s happened until it’s too late. It’s just a river pushing him towards rapids, rocks waiting ahead.

The river he’s on goes like this: if he looks at Richie he thinks of the bumblebee, and if he thinks of the bumblebee he imagines Richie touching it, and if he imagines Richie touching it he imagines touching Richie.

Then come the rapids: he imagines Richie touching him back, understanding, which is the worst part, because it seems like he could.

Richie jabs him in the back. _Jesus. Not that kind of touch_ , he thinks, just in case Richie can read his mind. To be fair, if Richie could he’d probably do it anyways.

“Yeah?” he whispers, even though they’re the only ones who can hear it.

“You okay?”

Eddie frowns. “Yes.”

He feels the bed shift beneath him. When he flips over to look Richie is sitting up, cross-legged. “You sure?”

Eddie sits up. He is okay, when he thinks about it. Safe in this CU Boulder parking lot, even though they’re definitely parked here illegally, safe next to Richie, only them. That’s enough for now. Eddie nods.

“It’s okay if we talk sometimes, remember?” Richie says, voice twisting.

There’s a glow on his cheeks from the moon in the bedroom window and he’s quiet, so quiet that Eddie goes quiet too. Richie’s freckles fade where the light hits them. What Eddie wants, all he wants, is to touch them, tell the moonlight: _I want to be close to them too._

Then, because the CU Boulder parking lot is making him feel brave, he reaches his hand out.

“Okay,” he says, and traces Richie’s summer freckles across his cheek. It’s softer than he imagines, and gentler than he hoped. “I like your freckles.”

Richie’s smile is softer than he imagined too. “For real?”

And if he thought he was heading for the rapids earlier he’s hit them now, head underwater and dizzy with the thought that he can never go back from this.

“Yeah, Rich,” he says. Then he prays to every god he can think of that Richie brushed his teeth at least once today, and kisses him.

It lasts all of half a second. He doesn’t even properly stay there, just bangs his lips against Richie’s. But he kisses him.

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes—barely even remembers leaning in, really—but when he opens them again, Richie’s gaping at him. The world comes back in a rush. “Shit, Richie, I fucking—ignore me, it was stupid, I just thought—”

Eddie gives up. He doesn’t know what he thought anymore. Maybe this is the best way to go about it, fast and quick _gee, Eddie, you know I love ya but not like that_ , and he can get on with it, go kiss a boy who wants to kiss him in a different city and call Richie once in a while. Hold onto the gentleness that seeps through the phone, and never show it.

It’s better than thinking _what if?_ forever, terrible thing for a person like Eddie who is really only sick with chronic worst-case-scenario syndrome. Because for as long as it took him to realize in the first place, he can’t un-realize it. The rocks: there is no un-thinking _maybe this could work_.

Richie always figures him out anyways. Would that have been worse? Hiding it until the inevitable _I know who you are?_

“No, Eds, I—” Richie shakes his head slowly, just once. His mouth is still dropped open and his eyebrows are up high, frozen again. “I—”

Eddie can’t stop looking at him, hair stuck up on one side of his head and a bit of spit on his lip—is it _his?_

His mind says _I never find out till…_

Fuck his brain and fuck Tears for fucking Fears for making him keep on thinking that Richie is beautiful, even after all of this.

“Eds—” Richie tries again. Fuck. Richie shakes his head again. “Haven’t been calling you cute my whole life for no reason.”

Eddie’s brain stop working entirely. “What the fuck?”

Richie smiles so bright Eddie can’t think of anything else, not even _Something happens and I’m head over heels_. “Cutest boy in the universe, Spaghetti.”

Eddie doesn’t believe him, because nobody else could even be a contender for that title when Richie is smiling at him like he is now, most beautiful boy in all of history. Eddie reaches his hand up to Richie’s freckles.

He kisses him again, because he is seriously concerned about passing out if he looks at Richie for any longer.

This time he doesn’t stop. He feels Richie open his mouth to kiss him back, slower now—flaw in his plan, because that makes him feel infinitely dizzier than just looking at Richie, _god_. Eddie copies Richie, letting his tongue slip into Richie’s mouth. Richie slides his hands around Eddie’s back and pulls him closer. Eddie lets himself close the gap as his own hands cradle Richie’s face. He never wants either of them to let go.

As far as kisses go—not that Eddie’s one to talk—it’s not great. Eddie’s teeth clack against Richie’s as he tries to remember for sure whether Richie brushed them or not; so much spit Eddie thinks he’ll get dehydrated his right hand starting to cramp, but for what it is— _here_ and _Richie_ and _Richie_ again, this time with two mental exclamation points—Eddie thinks it’s perfect.

It’s not even gross—maybe a little, but in none of the ways Eddie thought it would be. It doesn’t make him worry at all. Kissing is only gross in the way Richie is gross—not really; not where it counts.

Eddie’s hand cramp is getting worse, so he pulls away for a second and flexes it. Richie’s glasses are fogged up in the middle. It makes him smile. Behind them his eyes are heavy-lidded. Eddie’s are probably the same—he keeps forgetting how to anything except think _Richie! Richie! Richie! Richie! Richie!_ It feels like there is nothing in the world except for him. Not such a bad world, if you ask Eddie.

He wants to laugh with Richie and cry with Richie and kiss Richie on the cheek in front of the Losers as they tell them, and have Stan say _no shit, you guys_ , because it seems impossibly obvious in retrospect, Richieandeddie and Mike looking at Bev like _duh_ after reading Eddie’s palm, and he wants to hold Richie’s hand.

“Holy _shit_ , Eds,” Richie breathes. “We might be the best at kissing _ever_ , and I say that as a man of experience.”

That makes Eddie laugh, but Richie might be right.

“I think it was supposed to be like this,” Eddie says. Looking back he thinks it was, and he doesn’t have to keep that in anymore.

“Wish we didn’t hold out so long,” Richie says. “You in the hammock with me, thought I was gonna die waiting.”

Sun streaming in, their legs together. Richie’s eyes, so wide looking at him. Eddie puts it together, and groans. “That _whole_ time? What the fuck were you waiting for?”

Richie rolls his eyes. “ _You_ , dumbass!”

“ _Me?_ I was fucking—” Eddie laughs. “I was waiting for you, doofus.”

“Nuh-uh, I get dibs on waiting. Since _first grade_ , Eds—” Richie stops himself.

“Since first grade?”

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Your hair was so soft.”

Eddie grins. “Bet yours is softer.”

The look Richie gives him in return makes him ache, not because of something he thinks will always be far away, but because he realizes something that he has always known deep-down: that when Richie’s gentleness makes him feel loved, it’s because Richie means to make him feel it.

The first song Richie plays as he drives them out of Boulder the next morning is _Friday I’m in Love_.

“I don’t even know what day it is. Isn’t it Tuesday?”

Richie shakes his head. “Wednesday, and every day of summer is a Friday.”

The second song Richie plays is _The Power of Love_ , and that’s when Eddie clues in. “Hang on—is this the mixtape you were making before we left? The prom one?”

“Uh-huh. Was saving it just for this, knew I was going to get you sometime.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I got you.”

“Technicality, Eduardo.” Richie smiles. “Still want to slow dance?”

Eddie turns pink. “Fine.”

“Knew it! I knew you’d never actually go to the Snow Ball with Stan.”

“Watch out,” Eddie laughs. “Stan would do it.”

“He would.” Richie bites his lip. “Is that how it works when we get back to Derry? We tell everyone?”

“We could,” Eddie says. Derry isn’t anywhere close to the safety he feels in the RV, just his and Richie’s rules. Except for the Losers. He wants to tell them, talk to Mike about Richie’s music and tell Ben about the movies they see and all of them at once until they get tired of hearing about Richie’s eyes. “But we don’t have to tell anyone you don’t want to.”

“Don’t think I could hold it in from the Losers,” Richie says.

“Me neither. But I don’ think they’ll be too surprised.”

Richie shakes his head. “We’re never going to hear the end of it, are we?”

Eddie buries his head in his hands and laughs. “They’re going to kill us for taking this so long.”

He feels giddy just thinking about telling them. _Richie! Richie! Richie!_

“Ah, wait’ll I start on them about you. Never going to stop.”

Eddie snorts. “Like you ever do already.”

Richie’s eyes are shining. “You thought my Mrs. K. material was bad? _Ten whole years_ of me restraining myself, Eds. It’ll be a bloodbath.”

Eddie’s ears go red. “I can’t believe I like you.”

Richie smiles wide, still looking at the road. “You like me?”

Eddie smiles back. “A whole lot, Rich.”

It feels fucking great to say.

There’s no use in trying to stop his heart going so fast, so relieved, _richierichierichie_ , but he tries anyways, looking out the window. Being here isn’t like anything Eddie’s ever felt before—granted, kissing Richie probably affects the situation.

Here they’re up high, _in_ the mountains now. The pines are a little Maine-scrappy, but everywhere he looks he thinks: _this is new_. He likes it.

When they stop for lunch, in a town just off the highway, he looks out of the restaurant window at the mountains again and wonders how everyone who lives here manages to do anything other than look up at them—if they even realize how comforting they are. If they’d miss them if they were far away.

Richie kicks him under the table.

“Eds,” he whispers, leaning over the table towards him. “D’ya know there’s some dead guy who’s frozen in a shed here?”

“No fucking way, Rich.”

“For real. I was talking to our waitress. She says it’s this other guy’s grandpa, wanted to freeze him for fucking—what’s it called— _cryonics_. So in like thirty years when we figure out how to unfreeze them, bam—” he waves his arms—“Grandpa comes back to life. Some shit, huh?”

Eddie can’t believe he still wants to kiss Richie right now. He smiles, because he still wants to kiss Richie, and shakes his head. “Totally don’t believe you.”

“I swear.” Richie’s eyes are lit up. “Frozen grandpa. This town rocks.”

Eddie doesn’t want to talk about frozen grandparents at the same time as he eats, so he changes the subject. “You know, I _knew_ you were flirting with me this whole time.”

“No way you did,” Richie says.

“That’s just a diss on your own flirting.” Eddie scrunches his eyebrows.

“Maybe,” Richie says.

“Butch Cassidy?”

Richie relents. “Okay, fine, maybe a little. My uncle and Lucas always say that movie’s a little—you know,” he waves his hands, “in it.”

“Gay?” Eddie’s pulse goes up a little.

“Yeah,” Richie says.

“I think I might be a little—” Eddie purses his lips. “In it, I guess.”

It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s still scared to admit it to Richie.

Richie kicks him under the table again. “Well I, for one, am _really_ thankful you are, Eds.”

Eddie feels himself breathe.

He takes over driving as they head out, trying to keep himself from getting distracted by the mountains. And Richie.

He doesn’t want to keep his foot pressed to the gas, even if there’s a fucking frozen body within a mile of him, because this is it. The last leg of their trip. Three hours on the road, then a night with Richie’s uncles before their flight back tomorrow. It’s over.

He misses it already—being so open. Open road and open mind. He’ll bring it back with him, he decides.

He doesn’t want to turn off the RV when he pulls them into the parking spot at the Garden of the Gods’ visitor centre for the Diseasemobile’s farewell outing. How did he get to caring about this RV so much? He still doesn’t know how anyone would want to deal with it without a Richie Tozier to force them into it, but it has a place in his head all the same. There’s a little corner, right by where he knows how to navigate, reserved for remembering all of this.

This trip, EDDIE K. AND RICHIE T.’S SEXY SUMMER ROAD TRIP ’93 on one of Richie’s mixtapes, and sometimes the summer of 1989, because they are the two things that have made him the bravest he has ever been.

Fucking Richie. It’s always him who makes Eddie so brave.

The RV, maybe, was only the second-worst decision of his life. Not letting himself realize how much Richie meant to him earlier was the first.

Eddie looks at him. Richie’s making kazoo noises with a suspicious-looking blade of parking lot grass.

_Okay, scratch that_. His brain deciding to make Richie Tozier the one fucking person Eddie can never, ever stop thinking about tops that. Richie and his Richie-ness. Eddie thanks God that he makes so many bad decisions. He wouldn’t want it any other way.

Then Eddie thinks he spoke too soon, because picking the Garden of the Gods as their last hurrah quickly comes back to haunt him.

To be fair to him, it was free, and while the red rock formations are maybe not OF THE GODS-worthy but at least, you know, _rocks_ , he should be getting paid to hike past them in what turns out to be hundred-degree weather. He’s never sweat this much in his life. He misses the RV’s AC, no matter how shitty.

“Shit.” Richie stops moving.

“What?”

Richie points at the sign in front of them. _Visitors in cars, please watch out for hikers!_ it reads, the park logo emblazoned underneath it and, underneath that, _Halfway point – enjoy your visit!_

“Fuck,” Eddie says. They are, in fairness, next to a road, which should have been a pretty good hint were Richie and Eddie not, you know, _Richie_ and _Eddie_. “I thought only park vehicles were allowed to drive through here!”

What? It’s not Eddie’s fault he’s not reading a fucking visitor’s guide.

Richie wipes his forehead. “’Least we got to see the rocks up close.”

Eddie nods, out of breath. “Break?”

There’s a bench just off the path up ahead that Eddie hopes will let him get out of the sun, but when they get to it Eddie blinks. “Is this a joke?”

All of a foot of it is getting any shade at all. Richie groans. “No rest for the wicked.”

“Dibs on the shady side.”

“Shady _side?_ Eds, I know you’re short, but even you won’t fit on that.” Richie plants himself squarely on top of it. “See? Not even my whole leg.”

Ugh. Eddie squeezes in next to him as much as he can. At least his left forearm won’t get as fucking sunburnt.

Richie is looking out at the rock formation. It’s got to be at least a hundred feet high, and is so red against the blue of the sky it’s startling. He nudges Eddie. “Look what this one’s called.”

“Hm?” Eddie glances at the plaque marking it—all of the formations have different names, none of them very good. This one is _Kissing Camels_. Very fucking funny, universe.

The description under it says _For as long as has been recorded, these lovebirds have been visible. Some say it’s the longest kiss on record!_

“Whaddaya say, Eds? Should we try to beat ‘em?”

“Fine, but you have to start flossing,” Eddie says.

“By all means, Spagheds.”

Eddie reaches a hand out. “Shake on it.”

“Shake? Are you kidding?” Richie kisses him on the cheek—fast, just turns to him and back, but gentle. “Gotcha now. I’m not going back to handshakes.”

Eddie genuinely thinks he blacks out for a second. It’s not big, no _I LIKE YOU_ banner flying past them off a plane, but it feels like it.

It feels like when Bev takes him to Great Skates in Bangor and holds his hands in hers, lifts both of their arms up to dance, and Eddie only thinks about her, the thought of tripping over his own roller skates completely gone, or when Stan sends him that look at one of Richie’s jokes, _can you believe this nerd?_ and a smile. Or when Ben helps him fix his broken window so he can climb out it and meet him and Bill in the evenings, sun setting as they sit on the curb, Bill bringing Eddie the orange Creamsicle he likes and a blue one for Ben. Or when Mike walks with him, just the two of them, down to the Kenduskeag where the trees shade it and they fish, always catch-and-release, Mike teaching him how to cast: _now let go of your thumb, you got it._

It feels like love.

“Got me good,” he says.

He can’t tell you why he thinks Richie is so beautiful right now. He just is.

By some miracle, neither of them ends up with sunstroke by the time they finally circle back to the trailhead.

“Your turn,” Eddie says, and tosses Richie the keys.

“This is it,” says Richie, a little quiet.

“I can’t believe it.”

“Me neither. Feels like we left forever ago.”

“At least I get to meet your uncles.”

Richie brightens. “They’re the greatest. Lucas is a _really_ good cook. Kind of reminds me of you, too.”

Eddie makes a face. “I can’t cook.”

“I know,” Richie smiles, “but the other things. Just how you are. Don’t tell him I said it, but short, a little standoffish but really a cutie-pie, you know. Eddie stuff.”

He shrugs.

“I am not.” Eddie glares at him. “I am very friendly.”

Richie laughs. “Okay, _definitely_ reminds me of you.”

Eddie won’t admit it, but Lucas does. It’s kind of freaky. He loves both of them right away. They are infinitely cooler than Richie—except for their apparent shared love of Hawaiian shirts, Eddie doesn’t understand how Richie and Will could possibly be related.

“See your shit style runs in the family, Rich,” Eddie tells him as they walk back to the RV to sleep for the night—Lucas and Will turned their spare bedroom into a studio. It’s actually pretty neat. Will showed them some of the stuff he does—all nature, but super colourful. The paintings stay with Eddie. He likes that Will makes the world his own.

“One dad’s vacation outfit is another man’s treasure, Eddie my love.”

Eddie elbows him. “One dad’s vacation outfit is another dad’s vacation outfit.”

Not his best work, but whatever. He’s thinking about other things. It’s weird, the night _after._ There’s no fucking _What to Do Once You Start Regularly Kissing the Boy You’ve Liked Since Forever, But Also Kind of Didn’t Know You Liked Because of Too Many Reasons to Get Into Here_ manual.

Richie is already in the bedroom, sitting cross-legged when Eddie walks in after brushing his teeth. He squints—his glasses are sitting on the bedside table. “Big follow-up, huh, Eds?”

Eddie laughs, trying to sound less nervous than he is. “The big one.”

He sits cross-legged too, across from Richie. Two-days-ago Eddie wouldn’t get it, why he could be as close to Richie as he wants right now, but isn’t. He doesn’t want to mess it up by getting closer. What if Richie decides he doesn’t like him anymore? Decides it was better, what they had before?

Richie scoots closer, so their knees are touching. “You get freckles in the summer too, you know. Here,” he brushes Eddie’s nose, “and here.”

He runs his hand from Eddie’s neck to his shoulder, dropping it down along Eddie’s arm and letting it rest there.

“I do?”

They’re both smiling but pressing their lips together like they’re trying to hold it in, in the way that Eddie thinks says: _if I let this smile out it’ll never come back in._ Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Holding it in hasn’t really been working these days.

Richie kisses him first this time.

Eddie knows it’ll always be Richie for him, and the way Richie kisses him right now makes him certain it’ll always be him for Richie, too.

It’s slow at first. Eddie can feel Richie’s hand moving back up to Eddie’s face, then his other one, taking time. It’s the most care anyone’s ever touched him with.

It feels like driving through the mountains for the first time. You’re not really in the world anymore when you’re that high up. It feels like it’s just you and your friend and your car and that’s all there’s ever been, because everything else around you is so unbelievably _different_. The wildlife is different, you sense it, the plants too—turns into tundra if you make it far up enough. All unknown, and you have to be the one to figure it out.

But you know, even though the mountains are ancient on a scale you can’t imagine, even though there are more things that have happened on this square mile of mountain than will ever happen to you in your life, that you’re safe in them.

You’re in awe of something bigger than you ever thought possible but safe, so safe, because you know they’ll always be there, letting you and your friend and your car have as much time as you want. To figure them out, or just be with them.

When Richie cradles Eddie’s face in his hands and when Eddie brings his up to match, tracing Richie’s cheeks with his thumbs as he imagines, eyes still closed, where Richie’s summer freckles are, Eddie feels like nothing else has ever existed.

Richie’s hands are as unbelievably gentle with him as the mountains are unbelievably different. Eddie, with his eyes still closed, is dizzy with the thought of them touching him more.

He pulls back for a second but lets his forehead rest against Richie’s, both of them breathing heavy. They are letting out smiles that will never come back in.

Eddie traces Richie’s freckles along his chest to where they disappear under his shirt, as gently as he can. He wants to give Richie mountains back, for as long as he can. Give him as much love as there is in his body and his world.

_Maybe this is what it is,_ Eddie thinks. _You love and you love and you love._ That’s what he is, right? A lover, and a Loser.

He kisses Richie again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really like the ending. go mountains!! if you make it here hello and come say hi @astudyinsubtext on tungle!!


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